Guardian Groom

by Sandra Marton

  In the taxi to the airport he puzzled, briefly, over the sense of disquiet that had plagued him all day. He wasn’t about to give any credence to the idea of premonitions. Still…

  Grant sighed wearily, sat back and closed his eyes.

  In Greenwich Village, Crista paused with a forkful of pasta halfway to her lips.

  “What’s the matter?” Danny asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Just—just a funny feeling…”

  “A goose walked over your grave.” He grinned at the look on her face. “Listen, when you have a grandmother from the Old Country, you pick up all kinds of weird stuff.”

  “A goose, huh?” Crista laughed, stabbed her fork into her spaghetti, and began to eat her dinner.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE sun was coming up fast over the Rocky Mountains, but the highest peaks were still shrouded in mist and the wind blowing across Emerald Lake was chill. Grant, who’d worked up a sweat during his five-mile run, shivered a little as he entered the aspen grove that led to the Landon mansion.

  Gravel crunched under his Nikes, the sound a gritty counterpoint to the rasp of his own breath. He’d run this distance every morning for almost as long as he could remember, but it was a long time since he’d done his running at this altitude. His hard muscles ached, his heart was pounding, his lungs were working hard…

  And he was loving every minute of it.

  How could he have forgotten how peaceful it was here? Except for a pair of startled mule deer, Grant had the lake and the slopes all to himself. No cars, no trucks, no people, nothing but the deer, the sky, and the mountains.

  Damn, but this was one hell of a beautiful spot.

  Grant’s mouth twisted in a grimace. Except for the mansion rising just ahead, it was perfect.

  The house was monstrous in size and in pretension. It should have been made of fieldstone and glass, with soaring, clean lines. Instead, it was massive, built of concrete and brick, and as out of place as it was opulent. The mansion didn’t harmonize with its setting, it competed with it—and lost, Grant thought as he slowed to a walk. Hell, it was no contest.

  His lips twisted again. “Be it ever so humble,” he muttered as he trotted up the steps to the flagstone terrace, “there’s no place like home.”

  He smiled bitterly as he snatched his towel from the lounge chair. If there was one thing this place had never been, it was a home. He’d hated the house when he was a boy and he hated it still.

  It was a damned good thing he was leaving today. A week in this place was about all he could manage and still remain sane.

  Grant wiped his face with the towel. He hadn’t shaved since yesterday and the stubble of his dark beard rasped across the soft cotton. Tossing the towel aside, he reached for the Columbia Law School sweatshirt that lay on the chair, and yanked it down over his head. With a sigh, he raked his hair back from his forehead, turned and walked slowly across the terrace, and stood looking out at Emerald Lake, glittering like the jewel it had been named for under the first rays of the sun.

  What a hell of a week this had been! He’d ended up having to install a private phone line, just so he could keep in touch with his New York office. The mansion’s own lines, all eight of them, had been jammed with incoming calls and faxes from newspapers and wire services and what seemed like every moneyman, politico, and bigwig industrialist from coast to coast.

  “It’s a goddamned circus,” Zach had muttered one morning, after the three Landon brothers had spent a frantic hour fielding calls.

  “Yeah,” Cade had said with a thin-lipped smile, “and the old man would have loved it.”

  Grant shook his head as he leaned his arms on the stone wall that surrounded the terrace. Cade was right. The old man certainly would have loved it—the fuss, the media attention, the brouhaha the day of the funeral, when vans from the TV stations, the limos, and the mourners’ cars had caused a massive traffic jam on the roads leading to the cemetery where Charles had been laid to rest—oh yeah, he’d have loved that most of all.

  Grant had hated every minute of it. Hell, he’d almost come to blows with a scum-sucking, freelance photographer who’d tried to slip inside the mausoleum to snag a shot of the old man’s mahogany casket as it came to rest beside Ellen Landon’s. Zach and Cade had damned near had to pull him off the guy.

  Grant blew out his breath. That had been the only time he’d felt anything. First, rage at the intrusiveness of the photographer, and then a fierce stab of pain at the sight of his mother’s casket, which was ridiculous. Not that Grant hadn’t loved her—he had, of course. But Ellen had died years ago, when he was just a boy; his memories of her were dimmed by the passage of time, and besides, he was not the sort of man given to sentimentalizing the past.

  His overreaction—obviously the result of exhaustion—must have shown in his face, because Kyra had slipped her hand in his and leaned into his shoulder.

  “Hey,” she’d whispered, “are you okay?”

  Grant, feeling foolish, had nodded and squeezed her hand in reassurance.

  “I’m fine,” he’d whispered back. “What about you, Sis? How are you bearing up?”

  Kyra had looked up. Her face was pale but, to his surprise, her eyes were clear and cool.

  “Don’t worry about me,” she’d said. “I’m fine.”

  Afterward, the crowd of mourners had gathered at the mansion to offer condolences to Grant, Cade, Zach, and Kyra.

  “It must be a comfort to you,” old Judge Harris had said, his jowls quivering with solemnity, “to see how many of Denver’s finest citizens have come to pay their last respects to your dear father.”

  “What he means,” Zach had murmured as soon as the judge was out of earshot, “is that Denver’s finest citizens have come to size up the new Landon regime.”

  Cade had grinned. “What he really means,” he’d said, “is that they’ve decided to waste no time kissing ass.”

  His kid brother had been right, Grant thought as he straightened up and turned his back to the lake. Crossing the terrace, he snatched up his towel again and made his way through the French doors that opened into the library.

  It was cool inside, almost cold; the heavy red leather chairs, massive oak tables, and book-lined walls looked particularly ugly in the pale morning light. Everything was silent. The only hint of life was in the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee that drifted in the air.

  Grant smiled tightly to himself as he made his way across the Aubusson carpet. If his father could see him now, the old man would frown and tell him that he was to use the back door in the future, when he came in all sweated up from something so stupid as running. And then his lip would curl with disdain at the sight of the sweatshirt and he’d launch into the speech he always made about fancy-pants schools, when what he really meant was that it enraged him that his eldest son had chosen to defy him.

  A plump figure suddenly stepped out in front of him. Stella, who’d been the Landon housekeeper for as long as Grant could remember, gasped and pressed her hand to her ample bosom.

  “My goodness, Mr. Grant, you did give me a start!”

  “Good morning, Stella.” Grant smiled. “I was just on my way to the kitchen. That coffee smells wonderful.”

  “Why didn’t you let me know you were up? I’d have been down sooner, made you a proper breakfast. You go in the dinin’ room and sit down while I make you somethin’ to tide you over until the others come down.”

  Grant had a swift vision of the gargantuan breakfasts still laid out on the sideboard every morning, despite the fact that neither he, his brothers, nor Kyra ever put a dent in them.

  “No,” he said quickly, “thank you very much, Stella, but I’m afraid I haven’t the time. I’ve an appointment in—” he frowned at his watch “—in less than an hour. But I will take a cup of coffee upstairs with me.” He smiled and looped his arm lightly over her shoulders. “Did I ever tell you that you make the best coffee in the entire world?”

 
Color bloomed in her cheeks. “Go on,” she said, but she smiled. “You just wait here, Mr. Grant, and I’ll get you some.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Grant began walking slowly down the hall. “I know how to find the kitchen.”

  “Yes, but it’s not right. Your father says—”

  “My father’s not master of this house anymore.” He knew he’d spoken more sharply than he’d intended, and he softened the words with a quick smile. “Tell you what. I’ll walk you to the kitchen and we’ll get that cup of coffee together.”

  How long would it take everybody to get used to the change? he wondered moments later as he set his mug of coffee on the nightstand in his old bedroom.

  Charles Landon wasn’t master here anymore. The old man wasn’t master of anything, he thought as he stripped off his shorts and shirt. The grim proof of that lay in what had happened yesterday, after the formal reading of the will.

  Nothing in it had been a surprise. Charles had left his private fortune to Kyra, along with the house and its enormous land holdings, and he had left Landon Enterprises, the vast, multimillion-dollar conglomerate he had built, to his three sons.

  The sun, streaming through the windows, felt good on Grant’s naked body. He stretched his arms, flexing the muscles that bunched beneath his taut, tanned skin. Purposefully, he made his way into his private bathroom and turned the shower on to full.

  The old man would have exploded if he’d seen what had happened once the reading of the will had ended. The lawyers had barely been out the door before Zach had spoken.

  “Man, what a gift,” he’d said sarcastically. “Just what I’ve always wanted—a piece of Landon Enterprises.”

  Cade had wasted no time. “I’ll pass,” he’d said. “You guys can keep my share.”

  Grant had bared his teeth in what he’d hoped was a smile. “Hell,” he’d said, “don’t be so generous, pal!” He’d gone to the cherry-wood bar, uncapped a bottle of Jack Daniel’s bourbon, poured generous shots into heavy Waterford tumblers and said what he’d always known in his heart. “I’d steal hubcaps for a living before I had anything to do with Landon Enterprises.”

  Zach and Cade had both laughed, and Zach had raised his glass of bourbon high in the air.

  “Okay,” he’d said, “it’s unanimous. The new directors of Landon Enterprises met and made their first, last, and only decision.”

  “Yeah,” Grant had said, as the three tumblers clinked against each other. “By unanimous vote, the directors agreed to divest themselves of the company.”

  Within minutes, they’d agreed to put Landon’s on the market and give the proceeds to charity. Then they’d raised their glasses again, this time in bittersweet celebration of finally admitting what they’d all always known.

  Charles Landon’s sons had, over the years, ignored their father, argued with him, feared him and despised him—but they had never loved him.

  Grant stepped from the shower, toweled himself dry, then strolled naked into the bedroom. And so it was all over. Within hours, he’d be in New York, Zach would be in Boston, and Cade would be in London. Kyra, of course, would remain here, where she belonged and where she was happy.

  Hell, he couldn’t wait to get back to his own world, and his own life. There were the loose ends of that contract to tie up—and there were other loose ends, too. He smiled a little as he drew his shirt over his broad shoulders. He’d certainly been abrupt with Kimberly—Kimberly and that red teddy. But he’d been abrupt with women before, when the demands of the law had gotten in the way of his private life. A couple of dozen long-stemmed red roses, a box of Godiva chocolates…

  Grant’s smile tilted. Kimberly would come around.

  And then there was the Madigan woman and that tantalizing glimpse of black lace she’d flashed each time she’d crossed those long legs.

  He grinned as he stepped into his trousers. What a dilemma, to have to choose between the two—or not to choose. There were lots of women in New York. Beautiful women. A man could spend his life sipping nectar from all those sweet flowers. Not that he didn’t believe in fidelity.

  Grant looped his tie under his collar and knotted it. He was always faithful, he thought, smiling again—for as long as an affair lasted.

  He looked into the mirror as he put on his jacket. The runner in shorts and sweatshirt was gone, replaced by a meticulously groomed man in a Savile Row suit, but then, that was who he was. The man who’d come into this bedroom with an unshaven face, grungy shorts, and a sweatshirt was just a leftover from a life he’d long ago put behind him.

  Why he even kept his old running clothes was beyond him; they were so beat up that they should have been tossed out years ago.

  With a grimace, Grant stuffed the shirt and shorts into a pocket of his weekend bag. This was not the time for philosophical musings. He had an appointment to keep—a breakfast meeting requested by Victor Bayliss, who’d been Charles’s number one yesman.

  “You meet with the guy,” his brothers had said with unseemly haste. “It takes a lawyer to talk to a lawyer.”

  Heartless bastards, Grant thought with a fond smile as he closed the bedroom door after him. Not that he minded. Bayliss undoubtedly wanted this meeting so he could cozy up to the new Landon management.

  Grant could hardly wait to see the man’s face when he heard the news.

  A couple of hours later, Grant threw open the massive front door to the Landon mansion, slammed it shut behind him, and strode down the hall to the dining room. They were all gathered there, just as he’d expected. Cade and Zach were horsing around as if they hadn’t a care in the world while a smiling Kyra looked on.

  Hell, Grant thought angrily, why did he have to be the one to drop the bombshell?

  “Dammit,” he snapped, “what’s going on here? We’re not kids anymore, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  Cade and Zach swung toward him, their faces registering surprise.

  “Grant?” Kyra said. “Are you okay?”

  He dropped the manila folder filled with bad news on the table, walked to the sideboard, and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “I’m fine,” he said, but he knew, from the looks on their faces, that he wasn’t fooling anybody.

  “So?” Cade asked after a minute. “What did Bayliss want to talk about?”

  A muscle knotted in Grant’s jaw. “Trouble,” he said grimly. “That’s what he wanted to talk about.”

  Zach frowned. “What kind of trouble?”

  Grant picked up the file folder. There was no point in beating around the bush; this would have to be dealt with quickly.

  “See for yourselves,” he said. He pulled papers from the folder and handed one stack to Cade, the other to Zach. Kyra looked at him, her brows raised, and he smiled reassuringly. There was nothing here to worry his little sister, thank goodness. After a moment, she turned toward the window.

  Cade was the first to react.

  “According to this report,” he said, looking at Grant, “this Dallas oil company Landon owns—Gordon’s, it’s called—is going to go under any minute.”

  “What oil company?” Zach said, his expression puzzled. “I just read a profile on a Landon acquisition called Triad. It’s some kind of Hollywood production outfit—and it’s gonna sink like a stone.”

  Grant nodded grimly. “You’re both right. Landon bought both firms to bail them out. Instead, we seem to have helped them get into worse condition.”

  Cade bristled. “What’s this ‘we’ stuff, big brother?”

  “Are you forgetting, Cade?” Grant swung toward him. “It’s us, as of yesterday. Like it or not, we’re Landon Enterprises. And we will be, until we find a buyer.”

  Neither Zach nor Cade needed to be force-fed reality. Grant saw the understanding dawn in both their faces.

  If either Gordon Oil or Triad Productions went under, selling Landon would become a nightmare. The company would have a hole in its balance sheet large enough to sink a battleship. Only a fool would
buy it then.

  Grant’s jaw clenched. His hand went to his pocket, where a scrap of paper lay. The paper was yet another problem, one so ridiculous he couldn’t bring himself to mention it. Not now anyway; not until they’d figured a way out of this mess.

  “Tell Bayliss to deal with this,” Cade said.

  “Bayliss retired as of this morning. He said he was too old to face another Colorado winter.” Grant smiled tightly. “Seems we read him wrong. He’s going to spend the rest of his days in the Virgin Islands, sipping piña coladas.”

  “Goodwin, then. Bayliss’s second in command. He can—”

  “Goodwin’s got a dozen things on his plate already.”

  “Then what—”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” The brothers swung around. Kyra was glowering at them with a look on her face that said all three of them were fools. “What’s with you guys? Are you stupid, or what? A ten-year-old could figure this out!” She turned an angry glare on Zach. “You’re the financial whiz, aren’t you? Surely you could fly out to the coast, take a look at Triad’s books, and decide what can be done to help it.”

  “Me? Don’t be silly. I’ve got people waiting for me in Boston. I can’t just—”

  “And you,” she snapped at Cade. “You’re the genius who knows all about oil. And here’s this little company having a problem.” She slapped her hands onto her hips. “Would it be too much to hope that maybe you might be the one to check things out in Dallas?”

  “It’s out of the question! I’ve business in London. I can’t—”

  “She’s right,” Grant said brusquely. “You guys could get a handle on things faster than anybody else.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Cade and Zach looked at each other, and then Zach threw up his arms in defeat.

  “Two days,” he said, “and not a second more.”

  Cade nodded. “Okay. Two days, and then…Wait just a minute.” He swung toward Grant. “What about you? Don’t tell me you’re the only one of us who gets to walk away from this mess?”